One of our biggest problems is that 19th-century inheritances have become so ingrained as to be nearly unextractable. For example, the core building blocks of infantry, cavalry, & artillery, that over time had other 'multipliers' added, like engineers, cyber, or public affairs.

If we were to begin again, tabula rasa, we'd instead make what we currently think of as 'enablers' - comms, cyber, information operations, etc - the core, and add multipliers like smaller, more elite combat arms formations to them.

There's no denying that lethal forces are a core competency of modern militaries. But they are less effective than in the past because reaching anything like a Clausewitzian 'decision' is impossible because there are so many other ways for an adversary to resist.

Lethal forces of the future will be small, precise, agile, and flexible enough to respond to a variety of plug-and-play missions around the world. Call it the conventionalization of special operations forces, if you like.

Large formations of what we today consider conventional assets - the infantry, cavalry, and artillery building blocks - will become essentially just targets for swifter, more resilient, and more agile combat forces build around the new model.

Imagine the U.S. destruction of Saddam Hussein's 20th-century Soviet-style military in 1991, but on a grander scale.

And then come the sales pitches: